


the art of repetition

by idaate



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Pre-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9522314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: Amami can't shake the feeling that he's done this all before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR NDRV3 ENDGAME SPOILERS!
> 
> Read at your own discretion if you don't want to be spoiled!

You're opening your eyes, and all you can see are three slits of light and for a moment you thinks you're dead. You lay there, for a little while, wondering if this is hell - after all you've heard stories about how hell is just sitting in an elevator for all of eternity, and if you're being honest you'd far prefer perishing at Satan's hands because at least that isn't boring - when someone opens the door.   
  
"Uhm, I'm so sorry to bother you," the boy is dressed in frills and fidgeting nervously, "but you're the last one to wake up. Everyone else is, uh, awake--"   
  
You tumble forward, not intentionally as you doesn't hold any particular ill will towards the boy but damn, you was cramped and tired and scared.   
  
There are fourteen other kids there - plus the boy - and you realizes that you're one of the youngest ones there as you straighten up. They glare at you with a slight contempt, and behind you, the boy makes a strange noise in his throat. You turn around.   
  
"You're a Super High-School Level, right?" He asks, and you find yourself nodding. "I'm Yoshika Endo, the Super High-School Level Oneirologist. I...I interpret dreams. And stuff. And you are...?" He's trying so hard to be nice, you can tell, and so you grin and offer a hand out to him.   
  
"Amami Rantarou." You say. "The Super High-School Level Pianist."   


  
.   


  
There is a bear, at first, and you laugh because what the fuck? A bear? It's so rubbery and round and comical that it's hard not to laugh at it, honestly. You tell it yourself, in fact.   
  
It opens it's mouth, let's out a cackle, and declares that you are all to kill each other until there are two of them left.   
  
That wasn't nearly as funny, but some other kids laugh anyway and call it dumb.   
  
Yoshika isn't laughing, however, and there's some strange sort of pity inside you as walk over to him and rub his head, comfort him, promise that things will be alright. There's something unsettling about seeing someone who had offered you a hand to be so upset.   
  
"Do you really promise?" He sniffs.   
  
"Of course." You say, with full conviction. "A person like me doesn't go back on their word."   


  
.   


  
The morning after the next, you find Yoshika sitting at a table with a knife protruding from his neck.   


  
.   


  
You promise that no one else will die after Yoshika, not under your watch, because you've got your word to keep and that means everything to you, right?   
  
That promise is broken, as well.   


  
.   


  
So many people die. So many people. It's scary, honestly, and you have no idea how you're alive and it must be some terrible stroke of luck as you stare at your hands and tremble. You want to play the piano again, you think, and that's why -   
  
There is something that feels like a breath of fresh air at the final trial, and you feel terrible and feeling relieved as the final murderer - the Toxicologist - disappears in a pot of poison. Their skin melts off their flesh and you shudder but it's over, isn't it?   
  
"We're the last ones," You say to the girl besides you, who has pink hair pulled up in a smart bun. "we did it."   
  
She nods, but there is no success or triumph in her eyes as she grasps at your hand. "Let's just go." She murmurs, but it's resigned, somehow, and together you step towards the future.   


  
.   


  
There's three slits of light in your eyes, and you groan unpleasantly. You're in a locker, you realize that now - though how is there a 'now' because there was never a 'before' to begin with was there - and shoving yourself out of it, you find yourself face to face with a boy cloaked in yellow.   
  
"Tori Tenshouin," he declares as he bounces up and down eagerly, "the Super High-School Level Ping Pong Player! I'm super excited to meet all my classmates! What's your name?"   
  
You're about to say that well, duh, you're Amami Rantarou, the Super High-School Level Dog Trainer, when a girl with a pink bun catches your eye. You look at each other in vague interest.   
  
You're hit with a sudden, terrible sense of nostalgia, but it's gone in an instant because you've never seen her before, you've never even been in this place before.   


  
.   


  
The bear comes as a surprise to some, but not to you. Isn't that weird? Murder should be shocking, right?   
  
Right?   


  
.   


  
The girl with the pink bun kills first, and for some reason you feel betrayed when you ask her why she did it.   
  
She looks at you with so much knowledge, so much wisdom that you're a bit scared to know what she's been through.   
  
"You might understand one day." She says, and goes up in flames.   


  
.   


  
You assist someone during the fourth murder - the Exorcist - trying to figure out just what she meant, but you still come up empty handed and the Exorcist ends up executed, screaming curses at you as he wishes you'd go to eternal damnation.   
  
You just stare as angels lift him up, up, up, and then drop him to come crushing down.   
  
.

  
The Ping Pong Player survives with you, and you're surprised with how much he's changed from the start. No more smiles, no more cheer, and he doesn't so much as blink as the final execution plays out.   
  
"Let's hurry up." He says, as the door opens, tone brisk and curt and you remember that he was friends with the Exorcist, wasn't he? Probably wishes you had died instead of him.   
  
"Alright." You say, and don't even attempt to take his hand this time.

  
  
.

  
  
You open your eyes to three slits of light, and something about it all feels awfully familiar.

But what’s familiar about being stuffed in a locker, and then being told by a bear to murder each other? You feel yourself tearing up a little bit, this time, but the person besides you - this kid named Tori, the Super High-School Level Butler or whatever - is stoic. Does he have no heart? You scowl, and yell at him as to why he isn’t upset by this situation.

Or, no. He isn’t surprised.

“Ah, do you -” He pauses as you take a shaky breath after shouting at him. “Oh, never mind.”

You clench your fist, as somehow that only makes you more angry at the entire situation. But you repeat the mantra in your mind, trying to calm yourself down - you’re Amami Rantarou, after all, the Super High-School Level Chess Player - you’re smart, you’ve got this down, you’ve had everything in your life down since you won that chess match when you were four years old (or was it seven?).

 

.

 

Somehow you feel regret when Tori’s body is discovered, the fifth one to die. “I’m sorry.” You say, and the person besides you glares at you.

“Finally feel bad about yelling at him all those times?” They say.

That isn’t what you’re sorry for.

 

.

 

You stand at the metal doors with the Fencer - a boy with grey hair to whom you’ve never talked to - and somehow, you’re reluctant to pass through the doors this time (why is there a this time? You’ve never done this before, this hasn’t occurred to you at all so what’s going on).

“What are you waiting for?” He snaps, impatient for freedom.

“I don’t know.” You reply honestly, and step through the doors with him.

 

.

 

Everything goes black, and you dream of girls with pink buns and boys with white frills.

 

.

 

“Are you a-alright?” You stutter softly, glancing at the girl who bumped her knee while trying to get you out of the locker. She scowls, and you wish that she had just left you back in the locker.

“Does it look like I’m alright?” She mutters, then sighs and cracks her neck tiredly. “Anyway, the name is Yoshiko Endo. The Super High-School Level Fashion Designer. You?”

You freeze. “Yoshika…?”

Her scowl only deepens. “No, I’m  _ Yoshiko.  _ With an o. Yoshika’s my brother, thank you very much.” She blows a strand of long hair out of her mouth. “What about you? Are you just gonna leave me hanging?”

“O-oh! I’m Amami Rantarou.” You find yourself straightening up a bit. “The Super High-School Level Milkman...nothing as interesting as you, sorry!” You laugh lightly, and for some reason there’s something in your heart that feels bad for Yoshiko.

But you’ve just met her, so what’s going on?

 

.

 

Yoshiko fights against the bear, and you see the look of horror on her face as it blows up in her arms.

Her blood splatters on your shoes, and you hear someone scream.

It takes far too long for you to realize that the person who was screaming was you.

 

.

 

Everything goes by in a blur. You can’t find it in yourself to care as person after person dies, and isn’t that so horrible of you? You’re supposed to be a compassionate person, aren’t you?

(Aren’t you?)

You aren’t too sure of anything anymore.

 

.

 

“It seems we’re the same as last time, aren’t we?” Says a boy with grey hair, and he looks awfully familiar as you stare at him blankly.

“What do you mean?”

He pauses. “I forgot.”

You step through the door together.

 

.

 

You’re frustrated,  _ so fucking frustrated, _ when you see the three slits of light, but you’ve never seen them before so perhaps it was some weird dream that came from all that good food your mom cooked for you last night. Your mom’s the best chef - has been ever since your father died all those years back and she had to cook meals on her own - and she made the extra-best meal for the day before you’d go to Hope’s Peak. “Only the best for our own Super High-School Level Guitarist!” She had declared, and your friends around you had smiled and laughed and punched you playfully in the sides.

The people around you were trapped similarly in lockers, and so you assist some of them in getting out of lockers and introduce yourself with grins a mile wide as you declare how excited you are to be all their friends, and what a great school year it’ll be!

There should have been some sort of warning signs, you should have picked it up by the fact that they were all trapped in  _ lockers  _ and  _ isn’t that a sort of a strange situation for prized academy students  _ because a bear comes up to you all, waddling along on tiny, aggravating feet and exclaiming delightedly that  _ “You’re all to kill each other!” _

“But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Amami-kun?” The bear sneers.

You don’t, you genuinely don’t - and you say so, too! - but the students that you were so eager to be friends with now glare at you with untrusting eyes, and you’re suddenly scared for your life.

 

.

 

The boy with the grey hair who you should know tries to kill you, right from the get-go, and it’s an  _ accident  _ because you were just trying to defend yourself, you didn’t realize that the frying pan had been so tough, so strong, but suddenly there’s a dent that’s far too deep to be healthy in the back of his head and your hands are covered in blood.

You inhale shakily.

 

.

 

You get away with it.

 

.

 

_ This never happened before,  _ you think to yourself, but there never was a before, was there?

The other students stare at you incredulously - some in horror, some in disgust, and some with unreadable faces - and yell at you, demanding a reason.

“I-I didn’t mean to!” You cry, and suddenly you’re reminded of a girl with a smart pink bun.

“I wish that he had succeeded in killing you off. God knows you don’t deserve to live.” Declares one particularly small girl tearfully, and several people chime in with their agreement. You’re frozen in place, unable to respond save for tiny, tearful ‘I’m sorry’s.

You have to cover your eyes as everyone is dragged away with the metal claws you’ve somehow grown to hate.

But you can’t cover up their screams, and you don’t think you’ll ever sleep soundly ever again.

 

.

 

You’re not sure if you’re really conscious as a girl with blue hair and glasses looks over you, tapping your chin.

“I have to say, I’m impressed, Rantarou-san!” She hums. “In the past people have survived two games at most, but on the third time around they’ve really died. On the other hand, you...you’ve continued to luck it out!” She laughs, but you don’t see what’s funny.

“I think I’m gonna give you a  _ real  _ Super High-School Level now. You deserve it, don’t you? For all you’ve gone through?”

What have you gone through? You can’t remember anything before this moment.

“I’d call you the Super High-School Level Good Luck, but that isn’t really an interesting concept for the viewers, right?  _ Waaay  _ overused.” She clucks her tongue. “I think...you’ll be the Super High-School Level Survivor! Cause you just keep on toughing it out!”

She looks at you, as if expecting a response, but all you can do is blink.

“I just  _ knew  _ you’d agree with me! Ooh, wait till I tell the executives about this!” She kisses your forehead. “Goodnight, Amami Rantarou! We’ll be meeting again soon.”

You pass out to the sound of her pondering how ironic your talent would be if you just--

 

.

 

Her name is Kaede Akamatsu, and you’re surprised with how kind she looks (even if she claims to be the Super High-School Level Pianist, because something about that doesn't add up to you but you can't find a real reason as to why that wouldn't be true so you shake that thought to the back of your mind where you'll have to deal with it never).

Her mannerisms, her attitude, her appearance (not to mention her ahoge) - everything about her seems  _ trustworthy! _

She doesn’t seem to believe it herself, and laughs when you bring it up. “But, what’s your Super High-School Level, Rantarou-san?” She turns the topic away from herself.

Well, that’s easy, you’re…!

You’re…

“I’m not quite sure.” You admit, scratching the back of your head guiltily. “It seems I’ve forgotten...but! That doesn’t make me a suspicious person, right?”

 

.

 

Something about the appearance of the black and white bear feels awfully familiar, and you’re certain you’ve done this before.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments and kudos - they really are much appreciated, and I read every single one!
> 
> EDIT: So I wrote this fic immediately after finding out the NDRV3 spoilers and before I watched a lets play of the game, so I got some vital facts mixed up - I was under the impression that the survivors of the game are automatically put into the next season, but, obviously, I messed up. So this whole fic hits the shitter.
> 
> Nonetheless, I do hope you enjoyed the fic!


End file.
